Sunday, December 04, 2005

Materialism and Social Action

I was at a church service this morning (blog entry to follow), where
someone who had made a recent trip to a poor area of India was talking
about it.

Much of what they said was great and encouraging, but two things stuck
in my mind as clashing.

One was the continual emphasis on how happy all the children, especially
the Christian ones were (in contrast to here). The other was commenting
on how depressing the poverty was and how good it would be to change it.

This got me thinking.

A lot of the time we talk as if we want to bring other people up to the
same standard of living that we enjoy (or, more often, don't enjoy). But
isn't that just us being materialistic and wanting other people to be
the same. What if it's better being just above the breadline?